Michigan picks up a commitment and there's a change at the two-spot in this week's recruiting rankings. To answer your question, no, Indiana still doesn't have a commit. Yes, I'm pretty sure they still have a football program. Changes since the last rankings:

^The average of the average rankings of the four recruiting services (the previous four columns). The figure is calculated based on the raw numbers and then rounded, so the numbers above may not average out exactly.

Michigan's third Westside Cub in the 2012 class, Royce Jenkins-Stone is also the second consensus four-star linebacker and second Cass Tech kid covered in this series. As a recruit he's a lot different than his Police Athletic League compatriots, though: where both James Ross and Terry Richardson are praised for advanced skillsets and knocked for their size, Jenkins-Stone is an A-level athlete who needs some molding.

Jenkins-Stone's name first started popping up when he was a rising junior hitting the camp circuit all Cass Tech kids hit hard. Barry Every came back with this evaluation($) from the 2010 Columbus NTFC:

Has quick feet, long arms and a great frame for adding more muscle mass. … Displayed tremendous lateral movement during the 10-yard boundary drill, basically taking away any chance of a running back just trying to hit the sideline. CONCLUSION: Detroit Cass Tech has another future star in the making. He has the size and speed to become not only one of the top prospects in Michigan next year, but a national recruit.

That was borne out as Jenkins-Stone went on to a productive, aggressive junior year. He racked up 90 tackles and a handful of sacks as he spearheaded the Technicians' defense. When the recruiting sites started releasing rankings, he was first or second in the state; Rivals had him the only Michigan kid in their top 100. ESPN's evaluation($) was last updated in June of 2011 and serves as a snapshot of where his star was before his senior year:

Has the size and athleticism for the outside linebacker position at the major level of competition. This guy is a strong knock'em back tackler who will punish ball carriers when the opportunity presents itself; should be very productive early as a special teams player. … Although we detect some hip tightness we see the flexibility, balance and agility necessary to play in space; does a very good job getting a jump on the ball; is quick to key and read, displaying a tough downhill attacking style vs. inside and edge running plays. Shows the playing strength necessary to shed blockers while moving through traffic; keeps leverage on the ball showing good change of direction skills. … Does a great job with run and pass blitz timing; has the explosive playing strength to beat blockers through gaps and put immediate pressure on the quarterback; is responsible for quite a few sacks and hurries. This guy has very good instincts; plays with the intensity and toughness necessary to create havoc anywhere on the field.

Allen Trieu's assessment is similar, listing aggressiveness, athleticism, and toughness as assets and discipline as a drawback:

Has solid size and good speed and athleticism. An aggressive player who is best when in attack mode and shooting gaps. Good ability in coverage, as he has good ball skills and length. Improved as a junior in reading plays, but can still have a tendency to over run some plays. Often times, he is beating blocks with speed and sheer aggressiveness, so he will have to learn to take on and shed blockers at the college level.

Unfortunately, since then his star has waned a bit. Cass got annihilated in their season opener against Harrison and Jenkins-Stone did not have an impact. Josh Helmholdt($) on that:

With a Rivals100 ranking, more was expected of Jenkins-Stone in his senior season opener, but the 6-2, 215-pound prospect did not disappear completely. He registered a couple tackles for loss and showed off great speed, but got bottled up too often and had trouble picking his way through traffic. Jenkins-Stone moves well in space and when he hits you, you're going down. He made a great play ripping the ball from a Harrison back to force a fumble in the second quarter. The awesome physical tools were still recognizable, but this was certainly not Jenkins-Stone's best performance.

Helmholdt followed that up with some commentary on why Jenkins-Stone dropped like a jenkins-stone in Rivals's postseason rankings revamp:

"As a junior, Jenkins-Stone played an aggressive, downhill style of football player and was all over the field. We saw him live in two and a half games as a senior, though, and he had lost that aggressive style and was playing back on his heels. Jenkins-Stone has also grown very little since we saw him the first time as a sophomore and that raises questions about his ability to add the necessary strength and bulk to play inside in college."

Much like the last time I saw him play, there was a concerted effort by his opponent to run away from him, but I must admit I was still disappointed by his performance overall. RJS has all the physical tools you'd like to see in a BCS-caliber linebacker, but it appeared either his effort or instincts were lacking at times (my, er, instinct is that the latter is more the issue, since RJS appears to be very into the game emotionally at all times)—this is no more apparent than in the third clip from the video, in which he bites hard on an end-around fake and leaves a huge gap for the quarterback to take off up the middle.

This is not to say that I don't think Jenkins-Stone is a good player—when he's aggressive, he does a good job of finding a way to the ball and either making a play or forcing the ballcarrier into the rest of the defense. I like the way he's able to shed blocks to get to where he wants to go, and his athleticism and size combine to be a huge asset, and if anything, he's just got to harness that athleticism and play more under-control.

A later game against De La Salle was better; Ace pointed out that RJS also got 22 carries as a meat-grinding tailback and that Cass Tech's reliance on him on both sides of the ball suggests his motor is excellent. Cass did claim a whopping 145 tackles for him as a senior. I'm a little skeptical of that since his numbers in the three games that were heavily scouted add up to maybe 15 tackles.

After his somewhat disappointing senior year, Jenkins-Stone fell out of top 100s everywhere but retained his guy-we-rank-and-give-four-stars status. ESPN and Scout continued to list him just outside of their top 100s, but ESPN still has a fire-and-forget tendency.

You may note the weird offer list, with huge national names but no Penn State, Notre Dame, or Ohio State. (MSU did offer, but they're going to offer any four-star prospect in the state every year.) That's probably the local powers wanting Cass kids to actually show up on campus before they seriously pursue yet another player headed to Michigan. The recruiting articles on Jenkins-Stone mention a planned Notre Dame trip, but are silent about the result of it—it probably never happened. The powers halfway across the country were tossing the offer out as a way to get interest.

The local heavies hesitancy was well-founded. RJS was the first Cub to commit, taking himself off the market in mid-April($) right after Kaleb Ringer. Like Richardson, he flirted with visits to some of the power offers he picked up but ended up backing off after getting a stern phone call about the consequences of doing so.

-----------------------------------

At Michigan he'll start out as part of the MLB/WLB battle royale. However, the depth chart suggests someone is moving to the strongside. With Brennen Beyer and Frank Clark poised to duke it out at WDE, Jake Ryan's only backup is actually older than him. Michigan is going to have to slide someone down.

With Joe Bolden looking like the heir apparent at MLB and James Ross too small, the prime candidates are Jenkins-Stone and Ringer… except Ringer is listed at 6'0" most places and is not regarded as a vertical attacking threat in the same way RJS is. Michigan had already moved Beyer when Ringer showed for spring practice and he was still playing on the inside.

If Michigan wants to start grooming a Jake Ryan replacement this fall, RJS is the guy. While most of the sites list him as an inside linebacker, various analysts note the possibility he'll move outside. More Trieu:

He is truly has the physical presence to play inside, and the athleticism to move outside depending upon where Michigan needs him and has the potential to compete early. An aggressive player who is best when in attack mode and shooting gaps.

From both a roster standpoint and a player fit standpoint, that seems like the move. Most of the evaluations above hint that he's better as an athlete who can operate in space instead of a play-reading, traffic-evading inside linebacker. SLB is the land of insane athletes who can terrorize quarterbacks and take on tight ends without having to worry about guards or seam routes, and that sounds like Jenkins-Stone.

“They’re getting a kid that is athletic,” Wilcher said. “A kid that has great hands, catches the ball well. Good feet. Strong and has great speed for the linebacker position. One that can cover backs coming out of the backfield. Michigan runs the same style of defense we run, so I think hell fit right in. He’ll know all the calls and all the gaps, and I think he'll adjust quickly.”

Why Jake Ryan? Ryan is an often-irresponsible (but getting better) vertical attacker around 6'2" who has filled out into the 230-240 pound range and spent his high school career terrorizing backfields as a blitzer.

It's not a fantastic fit because the recruiting services missed on Ryan thanks to his late emergence and he played as an OLB in a 3-3-5; RJS was an inside linebacker in a 3-4. It's still pretty good. If you were going to list three assets and a drawback for Ryan you'd be hard-pressed to deviate from Trieu's formulation of RJS above: aggressive, athletic, tough… and a bit undisciplined.

Guru Reliability: Very high. Healthy, heavily scouted, same (or very similar) college position, and an All-Star appearance.

Variance: Moderate. Does need to put on some weight, may end up a bit of a tweener between the inside and outside, and has some boom/bust potential.

Ceiling: High. Seems a notch below the nutso athleticism that would get him a "very high" but easy to see him topping out at an all-conference level.

General Excitement Level: Moderate-plus. A little leery of the senior-year backslide a lot of responsibility on offense may have had something to do with that. Probably needs to make an adjustment to a position he hasn't played before. Doesn't seem as likely to hit his ceiling as Ross or Bolden, but still nice bullet to have in the chamber.

Projection: Jenkins-Stone is the most likely of the four incoming linebackers to redshirt. Bolden and Ringer came in for spring practice and Ross has a reputation as a guy who sees the game ahead of his years. Even if he makes the move to SLB Michigan has two solid options in front of him. Given the evaluations above, burning a redshirt for special teams activity seems highly inadvisable.

After a hypothetical redshirt year, RJS will find the linebacker depth chart largely in place. Only Kenny Demens departs after this year; with everyone else back it'll be tough to fight past Bolden, Morgan, Ryan, Gordon, et al, to find the field. He should get plenty of time on special teams and some garbage time drives. He'll probably find his way onto the two-deep as a redshirt sophomore and will be a prime candidate along with Mike McCray to replace Ryan in three years.

Yes. Michigan has a touted guy they shouldn't have to unearth until he's a redshirt junior. On defense and everything.

Michigan State

Loves him that blitz. Recently Seth had the pleasure of spending some time at an airport with Michigan State LB Chris Norman. Norman, like any other high-profile athlete at a D-1 school, was well versed in giving vanilla answers to most questions about his experience as a football player, mostly some variation of "I'm just grateful for the opportunity, you know?"

No one had taught him how to respond to questions about the double A-gap blitz, though.

"Oh yeah, coach loves him that blitz!"

So I went back through the every snap videos from when they played Michigan in 2010 and 2011 to see exactly how much Spartans defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi loves him that blitz.

Two years ago it didn't appear much until the second half of the game. Aside from the two endzone interceptions, Michigan was having relative success moving the ball with quick passes and Denard being Denard. As soon as the Wolverines sputtered and fell behind and Denard got more and more beat up, however, Narduzzi got aggressive. He used the double A-gap blitz to disrupt the running game as well as prevent Denard from getting into a rhythm with longer downfield passes, and it was particularly effective because Michigan's receivers were dropping balls like pubescent boys late in the game, so they couldn't use quick passes to get around it.

Last year the Spartans applied the blitz early and often. They knew that Denard was still having issues with the pro-style passing schemes, and they knew Borges sure as hell wasn't going to be doing anything like throw a screen pass. The blitz stifled Michigan's ground game and forced Denard to throw downfield in the blustery trash tornado, which resulted in a stat line that was something like 9/21 for one miserable TD and 2 bona fide INTs (the easy one got dropped). It gave Rimington Trophy winner David Molk the worst game of his career.

Water is wet. Since Narduzzi loves him that blitz so much, a dollar says Michigan will see it again. Obvious conclusion: Borges should design some plays to neutralize it. Please design some plays to neutralize it. Also, the offense should seriously spend some time changing up the snap count.

The sun is bright. CB Johnny Adams has some serious 'tude. Dude gets pissy every time he gets blocked by Roy Roundtree.

I am a jelly donut. Just wanted to reiterate what Brian said about Gholston not being that much of a factor in rushing the passer. Most of the time Gholston runs into Lewan and then makes a lackadaisical attempt to get around him. Maybe he was told to just contain Denard? Either way, hopefully this continues. His impact has been overstated by things he did after the whistle.

Surriously. Breaking news: Hoke takes the rivalry surriously.

The actual preview part.

1000-foot view.

Dear Trey Burke,

Michigan State has enjoyed a renaissance under Mark Dantonio with back-to-back 10-win seasons. With most of the starters returning from the B1G's most dominant defense, a lot of people have the Spartans pegged to beat Michigan for the fifth year in a row and win a B1G championship.

Can they? Michigan State has a lot of figuring out to do on offense if it wants to accomplish these goals. While talent may not necessarily be an issue, experience certainly will be as the Spartans break in a new quarterback and receiving corps. But questions on offense apply to every other B1G team in contention for the title, so while the Spartans don't possess an advantage, they aren't any worse off.

Schedule.

Aug 31 (Friday), Boise State

Sept 8, @ Central Michigan

Sept 15, Notre Dame

Sept 22, Eastern Michigan

Sept 29, Ohio State

Oct 6, @ Indiana

Oct 13, Iowa

Oct 20, @ Michigan

Oct 27, @ Wisconsin

Nov 3, Nebraska

Nov 10, WifeDay

Nov 17, Northwestern

Nov 24, @ Minnesota

One noteworthy thing about Michigan State's schedule is that their bye won't be doing them any favors. They'll have made it through most of their B1G schedule before the break, and afterwards they'll be facing (just) Northwestern and Minnesota. This is important because the Spartans generally make pretty good use of their off week. Last year they were able to rebuild their offensive line in time to beat Michigan.

The Spartans have tough nonconference opponents in Boise and Notre Dame but benefit from facing them at home, where they've been undefeated for two seasons. Their only significant road games are at Michigan and Wisconsin, so despite a nonexistent bye, Michigan State will enjoy the benefits of facing most of the tougher opponents in East Lansing.

Their schedule is as favorable as: Sitting in I-94 traffic two exits from the nearest bathroom. It's okay, the only thing you had to drink was ... that 20 oz bottle of Mountain Dew half an hour ago. Uh oh.

*****

X's and O's, Jimmys and Toms

Offense

If Dayne Crist and Dan Persa had a baby together.

QB Andrew Maxwell takes over for the recently drafted Kirk Cousins. Maxwell has been in East Lansing for a while -- he's a redshirt junior -- but no one really knows anything about him. He appeared exclusively in garbage time last season (18/26, 171 yards, 1 TD) and was held out of Michigan State's spring game due to injury. The general opinion on him is that he has a better arm than Cousins, but it remains to be seen whether he has the same leadership skills and "intangibles." For what it's worth, he was a four-star to rivals back in the day.

At running back the Spartans return LeVeon Bell (948 yards, 5.2 ypc, 13 TDs) but lost Edwin Baker to the NFL. Bell's the tall one (6-2, 237 lbs) in case you get your Michigan State running backs confused like I do all the time. He's not as wiggly as Baker was, but he's a big homerun threat. Behind him is Larry Caper (116 yards, 3.9 ypc, 1 TD). While Caper's carries were limited last season with Bell and Baker splitting most of the work, he's a guy to keep an eye on. You can watch Troy Woolfolk bounce off him in 2009 if you're into reliving the worst moments of the RR era.

The Spartans ground game lives and dies by its offensive line no matter who's carrying the ball, and last season it wasn't very good. They averaged 3.9 ypc, which was 77th nationally and worse than Illinois, who also had O-line issues. Michigan State returns most of its linemen this season, so the unit should improve, though the ceiling may be somewhat limited. Tom Dienhart from the B1G Network seems to think they're the best in the conference. That probably says more about the conference than it does about the Spartans.

And finally the receivers. They could be the most talented group of receivers in the B1G, but they're also the most inexperienced, since they're all either freshmen (Aaron Burbridge, Monty Madaris), transfers (DeAnthony Arnett), coming back from injury (Bennie Fowler, TE Dion Sims), or had four catches all last season (Tony Lippett).

Their offense is as terrifying as: A six-pack of expensive craft beer that has been discovered sitting in the garage for an unknown period of time. Fear level = 5 +/-3.

-----

Defense

White pants after labor day was a bad choice.

Michigan State lost Worthy and S Trenton Robinson but return nearly everyone else on what was already one of the B1G's best defenses in 2011.

On the defensive line the Spartans return DE William Gholston (67 tackles, 16 TFL, 5 sacks) and DE Marcus Rush (55 tackles, 12 TFL, 4 sacks). Both are coming off breakout seasons and there's no reason to believe they won't continue to run up their stats. DT Anthony Rashad White (25 tackles, 4 TFL) will play nose, and at 6-2, 320 lbs, White will be a force in the middle. DT Tyler Hoover will fill in at the 3-tech. He's the only question mark on the D-line since he's a converted defensive end and missed most of last season due to a fractured rib.

The real strength of this defense is in the linebacking unit, where Michigan State returns all three starters from last season: Denicos Allen (83 tackles, 18.5 TFL, 11 sacks) at SAM, All-B1G Max Bullough (89 tackles, 7 TFL, 3.5 sacks) at MIKE and Chris Norman (76 tackles, 6.5 TFL) at the WILL or "star." These guys are used very aggressively and account for most of the bad things that happen in the backfield.

The Spartans secondary should also be the best in the B1G this season with CB Darqueze Dennard (42 tackles, 3 PBU, 3 INT) and All-B1G CB Johnny Adams (51 tackles, 6 PBU, 3 INT) and All-B1G S Isaiah Lewis (74 tackles, 3 PBU, 4 INT). The loss of Trenton Robinson could be significant, however, since he was reputedly a Kovacs-type leader for the secondary.

Their defense is as terrifying as: Blue Cheese that has been sitting in the garage for an unknown amount of time and is now mostly green. Fear level = 9.

-----

Little giants.

K Dan Conroy (17/23) returns for his redshirt senior year as one of the best kickers in the B1G.

*****

Predictions

Record: 9-3 overall, 6-2 B1G. There are a bunch of tossups, but I feel like they'll split Boise/ND, Michigan/Wisconsin, and Ohio State/Nebraska.

Against Michigan: If Maxwell and the receivers pan out, Michigan will be in for a rough game. I don't think anyone really thinks any of the O-line and D-line matchups go in Michigan's favor. There is also that silly stat that people say every year about "whoever gets the most yards on the ground in this rivalry will win," which, if you buy that sort of thing, doesn't bode well for Michigan either. It is at home, so the Spartans won't be able to get away with too many shenanigans, but that's little consolation when you wake up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat because you were having nightmares about little green men piling on top of Denard and twisting his head off.

Recruiting, though. Man I love me that recruiting.

Their chances of winning the B1G are as good as: Making it to that bathroom before you piss yourself.

Today's recruiting roundup discusses the commitment of Scott Sypniewski, the new ESPN rankings, the status of Jordan Wilkins, and much more.

Hello: Scott Sypniewski

Edited but probably NSFW, because Lil Jon

As you know by now, Michigan offered and accepted a commitment from Ottawa (IL) long snapper Scott Sypniewski on Wednesday, sparking a rather mixed reaction followed by a reaction to the reaction, if you follow. Like Brian*, you can put me down for "thoroughly perplexed," especially given the timing of the offer—even if there's a potentially pressing need for a long snapper, wouldn't that be determined in the fall (especially given the presence of 2012 preferred walk-on Tyler Tokarsky) as opposed to June?

That said, Sypniewski at least represents one of the top players nationwide at the position, which has seen an increase in scholarship offers recently according to this Rivals article from May:

At least 25 of the 121 non-academies in the FBS ranks have long snappers who were awarded scholarships directly out of high school or junior college. Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell estimates that represents about a 20 percent increase over the last five or six years.

So, at least Michigan isn't alone; the article claims that students of long-snapping guru Chris Rubio earned scholarships to LSU, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Arizona State, and Michigan State (that would be one-time Michigan walk-on pledge Taybor Pepper) last year.

While I'm still not sure it was the wisest move to take a specialist at this juncture, there's one argument against taking Sypniewski that I'll address here: the cries that taking him precluded Michigan from bringing on Laquon Treadwell, Derrick Green or Jordan Wilkins, Kendall Fuller or Leon McQuay, and Joe Mathis. Like, four of those guys.

While Michigan is in great shape for Treadwell, he's the only player among that group that I'd say has a better than 33% chance of becoming a Wolverine, and that figure might be generous for most of those guys. Green keeps popping up in articles that don't mention Michigan($), Wilkins appears to be a strong Auburn lean (more on him later), Fuller has strong ties to Virginia Tech and Clemson, McQuay is a top-flight Florida recruit, and Mathis changes his favorite every time he visits a new school. Not trying to sound overly negative here, just trying to be realistic: getting any two of those players would be fantastic. There's no way in hell Michigan was getting four no matter how the numbers worked out.

In other current commit news, ESPN updated their top 150, introduced the ESPN300, and released their team rankings for the class of 2013. Unsurprisingly, Michigan tops the team rankings; the full list is here, but paywalled, while TomVH's analysis of the team rankings is free, which totally makes sense. Other Big Ten+ teams in the top 25: Ohio State (7), Notre Dame (10), Penn State (14), and Michigan State (22).

As for changes to the individual player rankings, TTB has the full breakdown, as usual. The big movers were Jourdan Lewis, who rose 15 spots and into the top 100, Mike McCray, who fell 29 spots, and Patrick Kugler, who jumped from #123 to #112. In all, Michigan has 15 players in the ESPN300, including 11 in the ESPN150. Shane Morris is the top-ranked commit at #32, which represented a five-spot rise for him.

Change Of Plans For Wilkins

So, yeah, about TN RB Jordan Wilkins—the four-star back was initially slated to visit Ann Arbor on Saturday, but he'll have to reschedule after realizing that he has to take the ACT that day ($). Wilkins maintains that he wants to see all of his final four schools—Auburn, Michigan, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee—before making a commitment, but this still doesn't bode well. Sam Webb profiled Wilkins in the Detroit News, and Wilkins reiterated that he very nearly committed to Auburn on Monday. Message board rumors also have Wilkins maybe not liking Michigan's depth chart so much, which means this is ominous:

So what are major factors?

"Early playing time and coaches," said Wilkins. "I know I want to play with guys I get along with — that I can come and talk to about anything. I like coaches that I can talk to about anything because my high school coaches right now are like my second parents. I've always been close with my coaches, so that's another big thing.["]

Wilkins would like to have his decision made before his football season starts. My guess is that decision won't be Michigan.

The Wolverines somewhat surprisingly showed up on PA WR Robert Foster's top seven yesterday, joining Alabama, Pitt, Ohio State, Michigan State, Oregon, and USC. According to Foster's assistant coach, via an article by 247's Steve Wiltfong($), he's planning to visit Michigan and MSU this month. Foster also plans to take all of his official visits before deciding, so even if there's mutual interest here, it may be tough for Foster to find a spot in the class. One receiver who may move a little faster is MD WR Paul Harris, who will visit on June 19, according to Tremendous. He's one to keep an eye on.

Tim Sullivan reports that TX DT Hardreck Walker plans to make a decision by the end of the summer, but will continue taking visits, and he plans on taking an official to Michigan ($, info in header). We'll see how this one plays out, since the Wolverines are no longer really in need of a DT unless they decide that Henry Poggi fits best at strongside DE. Even then, shoehorning another defensive lineman in the class could prove difficult.

Quickly: Steve Wiltfong reports that Michigan offered CA ATH Darren Carrington, but there isn't an article to go with the tweet, so for now that's all the info we've got regarding any potential interest or visits. Michigan made the top five for AZ CB Cole Luke along with Notre Dame, Texas, Nebraska, and Cal. Happy trails to Su'a Cravens, who shocked the world by committing to USC. Cravens says he still plans to visit Michigan and his other finalists, but I wouldn't hold out hope for a switch. Don't do this, people.

Quick 2014 Updates

Not as much action as recent weeks on the 2014 front, but IL CB Parrker Westphal did visit campus on Tuesday and came away mighty impressed. He told Tremendous that Michigan is now the school by which he'll measure all of his other visits and he plans on being in Ann Arbor again for the BBQ at the Big House. Westphal is coached by former Michigan CB Todd Howard, who will likely accompany Westphal on his next trip.

Michigan is in line to get a very big visit, and visitor, in GA OL Orlando Brown, son of the late NFL lineman of the same name. Brown told 247's Clint Brewster that he'll visit Michigan on July 14th ($). Brown, who stands at 6'9"(!!), 360 pounds(!!!), projects to be one of the top tackles in the 2014 class.

The Wolverines will also get summer visits from a pair of quarterbacks. IN QB Brent Lyles will camp at Michigan on June 20th($), while OH QB DeShone Kizer plans to check out Ann Arbor again on either the 17th or 21st of this month ($). Kizer is one of two 2014 quarterbacks, along with MI QB Chance Stewart, getting a strong look at an early offer, while Lyles is hoping to break into that group.

I missed you. John L Smith, never leave us again. We have gone too long without a college football coach organizing "etiquette team dinners."

College football should institute a rule: every year one team who fires their head coach is randomly chosen, and John L Smith coaches that team on an interim basis for a year. It's for the good of everyone. Yes.

"The in-state rivalry is always something that's important to us," Hoke told sports editors and reporters at Weber's Inn. "We have not done our job the last four years if you're on the Michigan side of things. That's coaching, and that has to be better.

"But the Ohio game is the Ohio game. I don't think (that importance is) going to change," Hoke said. "And that doesn't lessen anything on the Michigan State game at all, because we realize in this state, you draw a line in the sand."

Obviously this was in response to some question about whether people respond to stimuli—

Hoke was asked if the Michigan State game carries even more importance for Michigan now than when he was here as an assistant under former coach Lloyd Carr, in part because of the improved Spartans under coach Mark Dantonio and also because of the Big Ten title game.

Right.

"Brady Hoke, can you be accurately defined as a life form?"

"Well, Lansing-based reporter, I can tell you I do respond to stimuli. Here, look. I shine a light in my eye. The pupil contracts. I hope this has been informative."

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE. Hearing that Connecticut offensive tackle Harry Poggins will commit to Michigan by Tuesday at the latest, or may have already done so. EXCLUSIVE DO NOT REPORT.

So… the long snapper. I don't get it either, man. In case you missed it, Michigan picked up a longsnapper with much fanfare yesterday. The fanfare comes because Scott Sypniewski says he's got a full ride, and this makes people confused. I am among you. Michigan picked up a walk-on who seemed pretty good last year (not the one MSU poached) and has a couple years of Sugar Bowl receiving MVP runner-up Jareth Glanda left. You'd think Michigan would wait and see if they could turn that slot into an excellent prospect before spending it on a guy whose main goal will be total anonymity.

Sometimes these things are confused. Lloyd Carr's last act as Michigan head coach was to bring George Morales aboard, but I don't think he ever factored into scholarship discussions. We'll see if Sypniewski signs a letter of intent. He may have been offered a conditional scholarship in the event Michigan has one at the end of the year, that sort of thing. If it's an out and out scholarship offer to a long snapper in early June that would be… odd.

Goodnight noon. Air Force and UMass are both 3:30 kickoffs, UMass on BTN and Air Force an ABC/ESPN2 reverse mirror. If those games aren't at noon it's hard to imagine Michigan will play more than one or two games then all year.

If you go to the games and care a lot about college football, that sucks. Most of the interesting games are on at the same time as yours and you can't watch the end of the noon games. Then you miss a chunk of the evening games. I feel like I've been getting less informed about everything going on in CFB, and that's a main reason why. Also, do we understand how many humiliating Notre Dame losses we're not seeing because of overlappinggame times? THIS IS SERIOUS.

This is admittedly less of a problem during lame nonconference weeks in which Air Force-Michigan is worthy of ABC. The games we'll be missing in that window include Syracuse-USC, Purdue-Notre Dame, and… uh… UNC-Wake Forest. Songs will not be sung about September 8th, 2012.

Side note: a while back I was told that BTN could not show 3:30 games because of the ABC contract. Clearly there are some exceptions to that. Maybe it's just conference games?

The lines? Jamiemac promises a full evaluation of the hypothetical lines put out by Beyond The Bets on this here site a bit later. I'll be interested to hear his take on their assumptions. The conference schedule, with games Michigan is an underdog in bolded:

@ Purdue: M –7

Illinois: M –18

MSU: M –6.5

@ Nebraska: M +3.5

@ Minnesota: M –14.5

Northwestern: M –17.5

Iowa: M –14(!!!)

@ OSU: M +4

Those are not real lines. I assume a line with Michigan favored by two touchdowns over Iowa would be obliterated in ten minutes. But I don't bet. That's Jamie's area of expertise. For his part, Jamie wants to jump on MSU with the point.

Anyway, if those assumptions are anywhere near accurate that's about equal to a prediction of a 6.5-1.5 record. That feels a half-game high to me.

Position paper: Chick Fil'A. As the Big Ten-SEC blogger fight drags on into a sixth decade, positions must be taken. Here is one on Chick Fil'A: it's not as good as Southerners claim, especially displaced Southerners, but it is a cut above competing chicken sandwiches from other fast food joints. I'm sorry if this has caused anyone to snap in disappointment in either direction.

Big Two, Little Ten update. ESPN revamps/expands its rankings. No significant moves except a bit of a fall for Mike McCray and the addition of Dukes, Butt, and Gedeon to the specifically ranked. Michigan has 16 guys in their 300, OSU 12, the rest of the Big Ten combined: 9.

This is their list of the top 17 players in the midwest:

Hokemon, yo. Note that the two linemen not committed to Michigan on the list didn't have a chance to pull the trigger. Also, damn you Lane Kiffin.

"Every time I see him play," said Indiana All-Stars coach Craig Teagle, "his stock goes up with me."

The 6-6 Robinson, who goes by "Tre," has earned rave reviews with his All-Star teammates this week. On a team filled with talent from the immediate area -- nine of the 13 players on the roster are from either Marion County or a neighboring county -- there was a bit of unfamiliarity with Robinson, who played at Lake Central High School in the extreme northwest corner of the state.

It didn't take long for the Michigan recruit to make an impression with his above-the-rim style, dunking nearly everything he touched in a scrimmage on Sunday.

"Wow," said North Central guard Patrick Ingram. "I've seen him play before, but didn't really know him that well. I like his game a lot. He can dunk from anywhere."

This is pretty obscure, so you're totally excused for having missed this, but I think all institutional destroying from the inside pretty much begins and ends with this deep cut: mid-70s Ann Arbor art-noise collective Destroy All Monsters reuniting in 2002 (with the late Mike Kelley on vocals) and disemboweling "The Victors" (begins about 0:47).

Take care,
Mike

This is it:

I still like it better than "In The Big House."

Lefties.

Brian,

Obviously Hoke and Co. are killing it on recruiting now and things couldn't be better. One thing my friends and I were talking about is how come there are so few good lefty quarterbacks historically. I'm only 29 so my football references are limited, but beyond Steve Young, Vick, Mark Brunell, Esiason, and Tebow can you think of any other top lefty quarterbacks that panned out? Should we be worried about Sugar Shane? Any idea why this is the case? Do high school coaches see strong lefty quarterbacks and immediately focus them on pitching?

Go Blue!

I was initially going to dismiss this as paranoia but here's a blog post listing every lefthanded QB in NFL history as of this year. There have been 39 total, and the list of current lefty starters is Vick and Matt Leinart. Since Young retired in '99, the only lefties to have anything resembling a career are Scott Mitchell, Brunell, Vick, and Leinart with Tebow pending and Chris Simms carving out a modern-day-Todd-Collins ramblin' backup sort of career. Lefties are only 10% of the population but that's a period of 22 years with four(!) lefty QBs of any significance, one of them (Vick) a guy whose amazing physical gifts bought him chances he otherwise would not have gotten. Young was a scrambler, too.

The baseball explanation is plausible. The google leads you to the wikipedia and shows you an extensive discussion of the over-representation of lefthanded players in a lot of sports, including baseball, and when you think about the profile of a potential NFL quarterback and a potential MLB pitcher there's not a whole lot of difference. It's nice if they're tall, they don't really have to run much, and they have to be able to throw a ball through a brick wall. The baseball players don't have to be able to take a helmet to the ribs without folding in half. Football players don't seem to have that kind of restriction. A Venn diagram of the two groups has the NFL prospects as a subset of those for MLB.

The main difference between the two groups is their reaction to left-handedness. MLB says "yes please, with a cherry." The NFL says "this is inconvenient, now I have to reconfigure the offensive line. " So the guys in the NFL subset are much more likely to be sucked out of football, and voila: your population of 6'4" lefty riflemen who enjoy getting crushed is even more depressed relative to righties.

That's a long way of saying that I don't think Michigan has much to worry about in re: Shane Morris. The forces that make lefty NFL quarterbacks rare aren't likely to apply to individual quarterbacks who happen to be lefthanded.

I didn't put it on the list despite its ridiculousness because it's a mean gnome wearing a Michigan hat, what looks sort of like jean shorts, and fake wolverine-like shoes that I doubt exist in real life. It's almost so ridiculous it's defensible? I don't know.

The comment thread on that post turned into a confessional about which users had which items—no one confessed to the chili powder—so these things are obviously subjective. That is, they're subjective unless you're the other variety of person on that thread: the ones who were incensed that the product they perceived as most ludicrous was not higher.

Super conference-type-substances.

brian, discussing superconferences today got me thinking. if the standards of a conference are 1 crossover game (as in a 16 team superconference) and a post season championship game, then doesn't the big ten and pac 12's future scheduling agreement of 1 game per year and champions playing in the rose bowl create something of a 24 team superconference between the big ten and pac 12?

why should either conference accept any more lower rung schools to dilute their tv money and bowl payouts to get to 16 teams when they already act in the equivalent capacity of a superconference?

trippwelborneID

I'm like… whoah. The chatter about the Big Ten-Pac-12 pact giving the conferences the advantages of a "superconference" without the drawbacks didn't make much sense to me when it happened, but putting it in that perspective is close to sense.

The way it makes things make sense is by making superconferences seem inexplicable. The ACC went to 14 in a panicked attempt to stave off poaching, or at least preserve a semblance of quality in its aftermath. The SEC went to 14 because Mike Slive screwed up his television negotiations. Absent those motivators why would anyone make a move like that? There is a clear motivation to get to 12—championship game—and none to go to 14 or 16. The superconference meme relies on the idea that the champions of the 16-team Death Stars will meet in a playoff, but how do you get there? You can't have a playoff without the Pac-12 and Big Ten, and neither of those conferences has any motivation to expand.

Hell, if you're Texas or Oklahoma the same logic applies to your ten-team conference. Right now those two teams have the easiest glide path to a playoff. They seem uninterested in getting the conference up to even 12 now that they've stabilized things.

The reasons you usually hear about the motivations to expand are hand-waving about footprints and stuff, unexamined Commisioner's New Clothes assumptions. Opposed to that are very obvious concerns about scheduling and keeping the pie slices the same size when you add teams. 16 team contraptions aren't a stable state. The rumbling in the ACC suggests even 14 is going to be awkward.